Use tags to configure deployments

In XL Deploy, you can use the tagging feature to configure deployments by marking which deployables should be mapped to which containers. By using tagging, in combination with placeholders, you can prepare your deployment packages and environments to automatically map deployables to containers and configuration details at deployment time.

To perform a deployment using tags, assign tags to deployables and containers. You can assign tags in an imported deployment package or in the XL Deploy user interface.

Note: It is not possible to use an environment variable in a tag.

How XL Deploy matches tags

When deploying an application to an environment, XL Deploy will match the deployables and containers based on the following rules:

Both have no tags

Either is tagged with an asterisk (*).

Either is tagged with a plus sign (+) and the other has at least one tag

Both have at least one tag in common

If none of these rules apply, XL Deploy will not generate a deployed for the deployable-container combination.

This table shows which tags match when:

Deployable/container

No tags

Tag *

Tag +

Tag X

Tag Y

No tags

✅

✅

❌

❌

❌

Tag *

✅

✅

✅

✅

✅

Tag +

❌

✅

✅

✅

✅

Tag X

❌

✅

✅

✅

❌

Tag Y

❌

✅

✅

❌

✅

Setting tags in the manifest file

This is an example of assigning a tag to a deployable in the deployit-manifest.xml file in a deployment package (DAR file):

A JBoss AS/WildFly server where you want to deploy the back-end application (EAR file)

An Apache Tomcat server where you want to deploy the front-end application (WAR file)

By default, XL Deploy maps the EAR and WAR files to the WildFly server, because WildFly can run both types of files. To prevent the WAR file from being deployed to the WildFly server, manually remove it from the mapping.

To prevent XL Deploy from mapping the WAR file to the WildFly server, tag the WAR file and the Tomcat virtual host with the same tag.